As a sand collector, once I learned of this beach, it was on my must do list. It is one of only four green sand beaches in the world. The sand is a green olive color here and is caused from a silicate deposit of lava called olivine. Yes, the sand really is green. In some areas, the sand is more brilliant than others, but overall it is olive in color.
To get here you drive to the southernmost point of Hawaii. This also happens to be the southernmost point of the United States. Then you either park your car and hike to the beach, or you hire a truck to drive you there. I would guess that the hike to the beach is about a mile. I recommend option hiring the truck. It is worth the $15 or so per person. It was a warm day when we went and the hike seemed long for the people that decided to forego the truck ride. The ride itself was kind of fun. Most of us opted to stand in the back of the truck. We bobbed and dipped with the deep grooves in the dirt road as it creeped along, it was fun.
Once we got to the beach, our driver waited for us until we were ready to go back. The beach was beautiful! The water is a light blue that fades to a beautiful deep blue and the whole beach is surrounded by black sand with hues of yellow. The green sand was at the bottom where the waves crashed on the shore. We hiked around the edges of the cliffs, dipped our feet in the salty water, and then shared a meal on the picnic tables. The experience was so beautiful and unexpected, I was just hoping to get some green sand.
Although there were other people here, it was not as populated as the other tourist attractions we had previously visited on this trip and we also had a lot of things to do on Maui for free. We met a local that said he had lived here his whole life and this was his first time visiting this place. It was also nice that there wasn’t any trash or littering, aside from the people, it looked untouched. ♦
